Tuesday, January 20, 2009

About 3:00 yesterday afternoon to be exact. Steve dropped the box at FedEx, and there is no turning back.

So what does the process look like from here? Well, much like the typical pregnancy, we wait. Our agency currently estimates that it will be 2-7 months before we travel to Russia for our first trip. During this time, we will meet with the orphanage director and/or medical personnel and gather as much health history as possible. We will do a large amount of communicating with some staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, who work specifically with health related issues from international adoption. Most importantly, we will meet Samuel and Rowan. We will be able to take video and pictures of the boys, so everyone will get to meet them when we come come. This trip will last about one week.

We then return home without the boys. At that time we will gather additional paperwork, some of which will be our formal intent to adopt the boys, and setting a court date. Approximately 3-4 months later, we will return to Russia to appear before a Russian judge to finalize the adoption. Russia has a 10 day waiting period before the adoption is final, but often, that can be waived. We then head to Moscow to obtain the boys birth certificates, passports, and visas, and head home. The second trip will last 14-24 days.

We are hoping to have the boys home by Christmas 2009. Potentially, it could be as early as June or July 2009.

The updates may be a bit more sporadic for a while, but I'll try to post at least once a week. Check back often!